


once in a while (you get what you deserve)

by Laylah, roachpatrol



Series: Imperial Pop Star [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Caliginous Romance, Cybersex, M/M, Pesterlog, Pop Star AU, Teen Angst, Violence Fantasies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-21
Updated: 2013-01-21
Packaged: 2017-11-26 08:17:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/648485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/pseuds/Laylah, https://archiveofourown.org/users/roachpatrol/pseuds/roachpatrol
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>TA: ii hated hiim 2o much, aa.<br/>TA: ii 2tiill do.<br/>TA: the kiind of hate that'2 liike, burn down hii2 hiive and brawl iin the a2he2, ii don't care how 2tupiid that 2ound2.<br/>AA: it d0esnt s0und stupid 0_0<br/>AA: it's 0kay t0 have feelings</p>
            </blockquote>





	once in a while (you get what you deserve)

_If I asked you what's on your mind_  
 _Would you say me, would they be thoughts unkind_

You look _everywhere_ for him. By the time the crew are done with all of the shooting you're exhausted and the night is mostly over, and you have a nasty, swelling bruise on one cheekbone where one of those seadweller thugs actually clocked you with his riot baton. It was some kind of prop foam to keep him from busting your face in or whatever, but it still fucking hurt like a bitch. Karkat has such shitty taste, being into those guys. Where the fuck is he?

The other extras are clearing out, joking around with each other and commiserating over their on-set injuries. You have the start of a miserable fucking headache.

"Hey," you say, cornering the first official-looking person you can find, one of the assorted midbloods who seemed to be helping get shots set up. "Have you seen Karkat? Karkat Vantas? He was the kid doing the hero thing in the video?"

"Sorry, kid, haven't seen him," the midblood says, shrugging you off. "He's probably cleared out by now."

"But he was supposed to—" you say, and then you're just talking to the midblood's back as he walks away from you.

That _asshole_. Karkat totally stood you up, so busy blowing a load in his stupid tight pants that he couldn't even keep his promise to meet up with you after. He probably didn't even do it to piss you off. He probably just completely forgot. God, you wish you'd gotten to shove him down those stairs just once before the take where he beat you. You still can’t believe he got you like that, either, just, _wham_ , one take. Fucking unfair.

You wait around as long as you can before you really have to head home to get back to your hivestem before dawn. Nobody has seen Karkat. Nobody has any time for you. Whatever, they're all bigshot important douchebags and you're some dumb adolescent shit-for-blood, they barely even _see_ you when they're not finding ways to make you a villain for the camera. You hate everyone still on the set, platonically, as you finally give up to fly home.

You let yourself into your hivesuite, throw the locks behind you with a quick lash of psionics, and start stripping off as you stomp toward your ablution block. You want to get the grossness of this whole night off your skin. Starting with the stupid makeup tattoos, augh—you look like such a tool when you catch sight of yourself in the mirror.

One of the nice things about having a suite in a big hivestem is that there's always enough hot water when you turn on the taps in the ablution box. You set it hot enough to steam, hot enough to make your skin sting and flush, and step into the spray. Stupid Amporas and their stupid music video. Stupid psionics who don't have your control and just let rubble fly everywhere when they break shit. Stupid Karkat not coming home with you for some nice _personal_ strife.

The water hammers against your skin and you scrub the filth of the video off as thoroughly as you can. The bruise on your cheek isn't the only one; you find others scattering your torso, some of them nasty enough to show through the thickness of your skin. You push on one of them, a tender scraped patch on your shoulder. You think it probably came from Karkat throwing you. Each sweet throb of pain through it reminds you how fierce he looked when he came after you—even in the cutesy makeup, you could see hints of the holy terror he's going to grow into.

Your bulge warms up as you think about it. You knead the bruise a bit harder and picture that hungry, intent look on his face. You imagine how he'd look with a bloody nose, dripping dark and wet down into his bared fangs. _Then_ he'd pay attention to you. Shove you up against the wall, give you a few more bruises to match the ones you have now. You drop your other hand to squeeze your thickening bulge as you think about it, rubbing your thumb into the tender cleft where the tips fork.

God, you’re a loser, look at you: on your knees in the trap, alone, completely fucking alone, working on a sprained wrist with how hard you’re fondling yourself. You’re almost more ashamed than you are turned on, but then you find the twin bruises where Karkat rammed you with those ridiculous little nubs of his, and the blaze of aching heat in your nook solves that particular moral conundrum. It can’t hurt anything to have thoughts about punching your asshole best friend right in his face. If it could you’d probably be dead by now, just, god, why couldn’t he have come home with you? You want to hurt something so badly. 

You'd bite him, nip at his ears, his throat. You'd rake claws down his skin, make him bleed, make him squirm. He'd give it back as hard as he could, making you pay for every mark you left. You rake your own claws down from shoulder to elbow, stinging sharp, and wish Karkat were here to do it for you. It would feel so much _better_ to have it be him, you're sure of it. His teeth, his claws, his bulge squirming up into you in rough, aggressive pushes that would have to be more intense than your fingers doing it now.

You pant into the hot spray, working yourself with both hands. You're going to wreck him the next time you talk to him. You have to, fuck. It's been bad enough just talking to him online, sitting next to him in the theater on those rare occasions when he comes to catch a movie in your hivecluster, but now that you've seen him _move_ , now that you've seen his sneer directed at you, fuck—

Your psionics spark and flash, discharging little spitting bursts of power from the corners of your eyes in time with the rhythmic pulses of your climax. You're drenched, warm genetic material running down your thighs, dripping from your hands. You feel dizzy, loose-jointed with relief.

And next time you see Karkat you're going to nail that stubborn nubby shit to the wall. You need to. It's a promise.

*

He's not online the next night. You leave enough messages in his email to annoy the living shit out of him when he comes back online, seeding them with links and attachments that are mostly harmless but in a couple of cases have really irritating viruses embedded in them. You've been fine-tuning your viruses for maximum Karkat annoyance potential for longer than you really want to admit.

The following night you start to actually freak out. He still isn't online. He still hasn't _been_ online, not since he signed out to head to the video shoot in the first place. You’ve got a tracker on his husktop—not in a creepy way—okay, in an egalitarianly creepy way, you’ve got a tracker on all your friends’ husktops—and he hasn’t even opened the damn thing. He’s really offline. He’s all the way off.

By day three you’re kind of a mess, and you can admit to yourself that maybe you’ve crossed some lines, maybe you’re in crazy asshole territory and maybe you’re planting a flag in it like you’re a fucking colonizationihilist and maybe you’re in the process of systemically razing the natives. You boot his husktop up remotely, get it to strobe and siren, to go and ping every other electronic device in the house till anything that could run a charge is on and buzzing, and you get nothing. You run every obnoxious ear-splitting alarm you can send on every device in his hive till they all melt. Nothing, nothing, you get fuck-all nothing. He’s not home.

Oh, god. He never came home.

You curl up under your desk and you put your hands over your face and you shake.

It takes longer than you want to admit before you can do anything at all. The light coming into your room has changed by the time you look up. You reach for your palmhusk and drag it across the floor to you with your psionics—you're not ready to come out from under your desk yet, which is a stupid wiggler instinct, as if you could protect yourself from panic by hiding. You don't even give a shit how stupid it is right now, so cull you.

TA: aa plea2e be at home and not out de2ecratiing anciient ruiin2 or 2omethiing.  
TA: plea2e iit'2 really a real emergency.  
AA: 0k im at h0me  
TA: really?  
AA: l0l n0 i actually have a life and these f0urth peri0d pre-warp statues 0f the empress arent g0ing t0 draw funny m0ustaches 0n themselves  
AA: but hey i can multitask  
AA: whats y0ur malfunction t0day s0llux?  
TA: iit'2 kk.  
AA: its always karkat  
AA: y0ure g0ing t0 have t0 be m0re specific  
TA: he'2 gone, he never came home after that 2tupiid mu2iic viideo 2hoot we both went to.  
TA: ii've triied everythiing ii could thiink of two reach hiim, and you know how annoyiing ii can be when ii really try  
AA: sure d0!  
TA: thank2 for that  
TA: but anyway he'2 not there, he'2 not an2weriing, he'2 not doiing anythiing!  
AA: that d0esnt s0und g00d its true  
TA: can ii a2k you the biigge2t favor iin the hii2tory of favor2?  
AA: i d0n't kn0w  
AA: maybe if y0u...  
AA: 0we me d0uble  
TA: you're the wor2t <>  
AA: seri0usly th0ugh g0 f0r it  
TA: can you go check on hiim?  
TA: ii have coordiinate2 two hii2 hiive.  
TA: iit'2 clo2e enough two you that you could make iit there and back before dawn.  
AA: ...  
AA: 0kay

You send her the coordinates you've managed to extract from activating the GPS in Karkat's husktop. She signs off to make the flight and you sit there, hunched up in a little fraidy-grub ball, watching your chumproll as you wait for her to come back. Your digestion sac roils, starting to attack itself. What's taking her so long? Fuck.

When she does sign back on and Karkat still doesn't, you want to scream. You clench your fists and make yourself wait while she types.

AA: 0kay ive l00ked everywhere i c0uld and im afraid its n0t pr0mising! there aren't any signs 0f a struggle 0r missing p0ssessi0ns but his lusus is g0ne the sopors crusted over and the f00d in the thermal hull is g0ing fr0m bad t0 w0rse  
TA: there'2 nothiing two 2ay where he went?  
AA: the place l00ks aband0ned, s0llux  
AA: n0t like he just went 0n a trip s0mewhere  
TA: check for hii2 gho2t  
AA: i did that first 0ff but it w0uldnt be here yet if he didnt die here

You're shaking again, right down into your bones. You keep trying to take deep breaths and it keeps not helping. He can't _do_ this to you. He can't just leave. You put your hands back on the keyboard.

TA: okay, 2o what do we do now?  
AA: n0thing  
AA: theres n0thing t0 d0 because hes g0ne  
TA: bull2hiit!  
AA: s0llux  
AA: pe0ple die   
TA: fuck.  
TA: FUCK.  
AA: i d0nt think i can make it 0ver there bef0re dawn  
AA: but ill c0me 0ver first thing t0m0rr0w night 0kay?  
AA: well get pizza   
TA: ii don’t want any fuckiing piizza! ii want my friiend back!  
AA: s0 ill eat y0ur half then  
AA: life g0e2 0n s0llux  
AA: it g0e2 0n until it d0esnt  
AA: im s0rry

You....don't do much for a while after that. Even when Aradia does come over like she promised. She holds you and she tries to tell you that you'll be okay, that she's sorry, that you'll get through this. You just lie there until she gets tired of trying.

*

Four nights later she messages you without so much as a hello:

AA: l0ad the media channel  
TA: what?  
AA: N0W

For a long moment after the channel loads you don’t know what you’re looking at or why you should try to scrape together any fucks to give. Two adults in too many clothes, a busy-looking studio. An interview? The scrolling print at the bottom of the screen reads RED-HOT NEW SHIP.

“Well, the thing is,” one swank bitch is saying into a mic held by the other, “we didn’t just want someone cute—not that our Vantas isn’t cute enough to bottle!—we wanted someone who could bring _fierce_ , too." Your bloodpusher stops for a world-shattering second. "The story really was about that hot-blooded spirit, you know, frontline bravery and all that? We wanted to cast a guy you could really root for, you could really _believe_ in. Someone who would do—haha—whatever it takes.”

“He’s in good company with the Amporas, then,” the guy holding the mic simpers.

The other guy grins glitteringly back. His teeth are capped with crystal points. “The very best.”

Oh, god. Is—what’s—you’re going to be sick. You think you know what’s happened. You should just be glad he's _alive_. You are glad he's alive. But wow you didn't want it to go like this.

The screen cuts to footage from the shooting of that fucking video, you recognize the walkway even if—you weren’t there, you weren’t _there_. Dualscar’s got his hand way too low on Karkat’s back, his smile a smug slice of perfect teeth, and the kid takes a bow, all beaming shy nervousness. He looks like someone else, with that smile on his face. He looks like a stranger. You had no idea your heart could hurt like this.

Back to the interviews: “Is that how it happened?” Dualsar asks, batting playfully at the mic in his face. He laughs, this deep fake jovial thing. He never stops smiling. “Well, just between you and me—” he winks, oh, ick, “—I was charmed the minute they pointed him out. Can we have a round of applause for the casting department? Those guys are magic. Pure magic. I saw the lovely little thing up there on the catwalk and I simply—" He pauses, presses a hand to his chest theatrically. "I knew I had to have a chance to talk to him, or I'd regret it forever. And once we got to talking—he was gracious enough to come and have dinner with me, made great friends with the boys—well, I just didn’t want to let him go.”

A wider smile, a sweeping _what are you gonna do?_ shrug. “I hope I never have to.”

While you sit there in horrified, seething fury, there's an awful montage of other shots. Karkat looking up in awestruck appreciation as Dualscar talks to him. Karkat sitting between Dualscar's two little thug duplicates, getting his nails painted. Karkat with his eyes closed trustingly as Dualscar hand-feeds him. You're not listening to the blithering propaganda that goes along with the images, lowblood pride, a credit to the empire, dream come true, an inspiration, you’re really trying not to hear any of it. Just looking is bad enough.

They cut to a close-up of Karkat then, wide-eyed and simpering stupidly, just as made up as he was the last time you saw him for real on the set. Someone offscreen is sticking a microphone in his face. "So, Karkat. How does it feel to have Orphaner Dualscar flushed for you?"

He smiles like an idiot. His pupils are huge. "Oh man. I've always been a romantic, I guess, so I'd always hoped that someday I would meet someone and feel that serendipity click, you know? But wow, I never thought I would get this lucky. It's... It's amazing. He's amazing." He laughs. "I'm the luckiest guy on the planet."

You’ve never heard him laugh before. You don’t like it.

The media feed cuts back to the studio gossips. If you'd eaten anything tonight you think you'd be vomiting right now. What have they _done_ to him? Is it even possible to fuck someone’s head over that thoroughly in the amount of time they've had their awful claws in him? Karkat Vantas is supposed to be a prickly collection of scorn and capslock, quick to anger, quick to aggress, the kind of vicious, cunning little shit who can keep you on your toes. The grinning moron the media just showed everyone is a cringing tame animal in a Karkat suit.

TA: ii feel 2iick.  
AA: it d0esnt l00k g00d d0es it?  
TA: ii hated hiim 2o much, aa  
TA: ii 2tiill do.  
TA: the kiind of hate that'2 liike, burn down hii2 hiive and brawl iin the a2he2, ii don't care how 2tupiid that 2ound2.  
AA: it d0esnt s0und stupid 0_0  
AA: its 0kay t0 have feelings  
TA: but that'2 not hiim.  
TA: that can't be hiim.  
TA: that gro22 giiggly puppet can't really be hiim.  
TA: ii have two go

You curl up under your desk again, hating everything, hating yourself, and you cry until consciousness does you the courtesy of fucking off for a while.

*

You ought to just leave it alone. You know that, even without Aradia reminding you every time you start complaining to her again: he might not be dead but he's _gone_ , out of your orbit. He’s left you behind for shiny magical popstar wonderland, for being some cutesy neutered pet for luxury-bloated highblood shitheads. You should leave him behind, too. But you just can't fucking help yourself.

You watch all the interviews where they talk about his hemochrome mutation multiple times. The way Dualscar treats his blood color like the prize feature of an exotic animal makes you want to break things. You try to convince yourself that you can see some shred of defiance still there in him somewhere, and you wonder if he would ever have told you if he hadn't been stolen away like this. You wonder how much of his attitude was because he was trying to swing first, before the world could notice he didn't fit in and smear him into grubsauce.

You wonder how much of any of this even matters. He’s gone, he left without so much as a goodbye. Some best friend he was! Some best friend you must have been.

Late one morning when you're three days sleepless you hack into the security system of the hotel where Dualscar's tour entourage is staying. You scroll through the cameras trying to find him, and when you do you think you're going to turn your digestive sack inside out with horror. He's in Dualscar's lap, naked and panting. Dualscar has both of his wrists caught in one big hand, holding him there, while Karkat squirms and shudders, his head thrown back in what looks like a wild cry. He looks so small. He looks so _happy_.

You obliterate your husktop and half the silicomb frame behind it in a psionic outburst of pure screaming rage, and then you feel like a complete asshole the entire time you're waiting for your allowance to roll over so you can buy a replacement screen and cobble the husktop back together. If there were any justice in the world, Dualscar would have to pay for the replacement for you. And for the mindwipe to help you forget you'd seen that.

Catching him on a security camera once was more than enough, but you keep tuning in to the news feeds about him, like an asshole with no life of your own. You set up a script, actually, that will ping you any time there's mention of Karkat Vantas on the feed. It's one of the most masochistic things you've ever done, and you can't help yourself. It hurts every time, to see him painted and smiling, hanging off one purple bastard or another, wearing one intricate highblood-style outfit after the other—it keeps on hurting, but it never hurts enough to look away.

The story that breaks you happens about a season after you lost him. Dualscar's touring to support the album that went with That Damn Video, traveling from one shit hivestem colony to another so dumb kids without a critical thought in their useless pans can fawn over him. The entertainment channels have been boiling over with the idiotic puff pieces that follow the tour, and you've been watching them with the sound off so you don't have to listen to the gross propaganda bullshit that goes with the images. Karkat's there. He's not dead. He's just gone, and it's kind of worse.

Tonight's show is different, though. Tonight the headline is sharp white on black and it says _HEROIC RESCUE!_ and the lead image is Karkat looking tired and woozy with his arm in a sling. You slam the sound back on as the shiny pressed studio reporterror recites the news:

"—nearly ended in tragedy yesterday morning when he took a wrong turn in an unfamiliar part of Erebos Colony and ran into trouble."

You’re actually chewing on one of your nails as they lay the whole festering story out for you, hissing through your clenched teeth with disgust. The ‘boys’ wanted to see some parts of the colony themselves between shows. Karkat wandered off somewhere, distracted by the novelty of a foreign hivecluster, and got lost. By the time Things One and Two tracked him back down he’d gotten himself stranded in the bad part of town, and set upon by predatory lowlifes.

The camera cuts to Dualscar's matching monsters, with Karkat sitting between them, bandages on his face and his arm still in that sling and you're going to _kill_ them, you fucking swear.

"You know, he's been really great, sticking right with us," one of the clones is saying. He elbows Karkat really gently. "Great company, you know? So when he went off by himself and didn't hurry right back, we were worried."

The assholes share a glance over Karkat's head. "Really glad we made it in time," the other one says. "And that our Vantas is such a feisty little scrapper he held out long enough! I mean, I wish we'd been a couple minutes sooner so _none_ of this would have happened, but."

"But at least he's going to be okay," the first one concludes.

“Amporas just keep saving me,” Karkat laughs. “You’d think they’d be friggin’ tired of it by now.” His smile’s perfectly vapid, wide and just the right amount of rueful. He’s such a fucking damsel, and it reeks. All of this reeks. 

The small one kisses his cheek. “Never,” he says.

His eyes are so repulsively soft, and the bigger one kisses his other cheek.

You thought you knew him. Karkat Vantas, who had a permanent challenge set into his mouth, who wouldn’t go to a matinee with you without a fuck-off swagger to his stride, a sickle set bold and cocky to his shoulder, and the route researched first by satellite map. He knew your hivecluster better than _you_ did before he ever so much as paid you a visit, and the one and only time you suggested that he was an idiot for waving his blade around like a kid with serious compensation issues because he was with you and you could shoot energy beams out of your fucking eyes, he kneed you in the fucking nook and left you gasping on a street corner. Karkat isn’t someone who lets anyone fight his battles for him. 

Except these guys, apparently. Ampora the smallest laces his painted claws through Karkat’s and squeezes, and you want to gnaw their hands off at the wrist.

You close the tab.

You need a drink. You need _all_ the fucking drinks. You happen to have a bottle of honey whiskey that Aradia stole from fuck only knows where and the plan was to save it for your next wiggling day and then the two of you would get drunk together, but the new plan is you use it to disinfect your thinkpan right now, because ugh. The liquor burns down your throat and hits your empty digestion sac like a small-scale thermal grenade and you savor the way it makes you reel.

What it _doesn't_ do, though, is make you stop thinking about him. Make you stop feeling so goddamn furious. You should just... you want to tell him how disgusted you are. You want to tell him how much you hated him, how much you _still_ hate him and how much worse that is now. Fuck it—why shouldn’t you? It’s not like you have to just haul off and confess your stupid unshakeable idiotcrush or anything, it’s just, it’s just that—he’s been alive _all this time_ and never gave you so much as a courtesy ping. He deserves a reminder that he’s not hot shit, he’s so not hot shit he is in fact shit icing over in the rectum of a dead arctic skunkodile. Why shouldn’t you tell him? It’s not like anyone else is going to, when they’re so busy licking his little red boots. You have another long pull on the bottle and glare at your screen.

Then you start poking around Zodiac Records' net presence.

It takes you a while to really get a feel for their system. They're reasonably paranoid, for a basically civilian outfit, and there aren't a lot of ways in. Most people would probably find it tricky. But you're a genius currently running high on boiling spite and venom, and you fuck their system so gently and so lovingly that it doesn't even notice it's giving you all of its access codes. You find your way into their intranet. You look for individual accounts, personal machines.

When you find the one for user KV, handle carcinoGeneticist, for a second your fury almost redirects itself. The fucking firewalls on his computer are ridiculous. Something like three-quarters of the net just doesn't exist, as far as that machine is concerned, and the missing three-quarters includes any reasonably intuitive means of outbound communication. They really _are_ keeping him in a little glass box.

A second later you get over your poor-helpless-Karkat syndrome. Why the fuck would he put up with this shit? Did he lose his fucking pride up Dualscar's nook somewhere? _Somebody_ needs to kick his ass for sucking so much.

You load Trollian onto his computer for him and tweak his permissions enough to get it to work. Fuck, three-sweep wigglers get more unrestricted net access than this. Coddled piece of shit should never have stood for this. The install runs, finishes up, and you boot the program remotely.

TA: kk, you are the mo2t dii2gu2tiing piile of degenerate fiilth ii have ever 2een on the mediia feed2, ii want you two know that.  
TA: you beat out the cholerbear-2lurry-eatiing competiitiion they run on the extreme feed iin the miiddle of the day, that ii2 how gro22 you are.  
CG: WHOAH, SOLLUX? IS THAT YOU?  
TA: ii'm 2urprii2ed you're 2ober enough to recogniize me  
TA: hell, ii’m 2urprii2ed you're 2ober enough to type  
TA: 2ure 2eem2 liike your new owner'2 been keepiing you well fuckiing 2uppliied with 2TUPIID DRUG2.  
CG: WOW, WHAT THE FUCK, YOU WENT TO ALL THE TROUBLE OF SETTING ME UP WITH A CONNECTION HERE AND YOU WANT TO USE IT FOR THE MOST EMBARRASSINGLY TERRIBLE LUSUS IMPERSONATION I'VE EVER SEEN.  
CG: OH NO, AM I HANGING OUT WITH A BAD CROWD? DOES DADDY NOT APPROVE?   
CG: WAIT, I CAN'T REMEMBER, HOW THE FUCK WAS IT YOUR BUSINESS AGAIN?  
TA: look 2omebody need2 two poiint out what a revoltiingly tame little biitch you've become, rolliing over for all the camera2 like that.  
CG: FUCK YOU, I AM NOT *TAME*.  
TA: 2o what wa2 that on the eveniing feed2 twoniight?  
TA: how much 2hiit have they been dopiing you wiith that you were two 2tupiid two get out of a fuckiing MUGGIING on your own?  
CG: CHOKE TO DEATH ON MY BULGE, CAPTOR, YOU DON'T KNOW THE FIRST FUCKING THING ABOUT THAT FIGHT.  
TA: why don't you try two 2et me 2traiight, then, iif ii'm 2o iill-iinformed?   
CG: I TOOK THE MOST DAMAGE BECAUSE I DID THE MOST ASS-KICKING, YOU SORRY NOOKSTAIN.

You read that sentence twice. Twice more. You feel like your rib cage has been filled up with helium, like a limb you'd lost has just spontaneously grown back. You still hate him like crazy but all of a sudden you don't hate _yourself_ for being unable to stop.

TA: that'2 not what the mediia 2cavenger2 are 2ayiing. tell me how iit really went down, then, iif you were 2uch a harda22.  
CG: WHAT, THE SPANK BANK'S A LITTLE EMPTY AND YOU NEED IMAGES OF ME FIGHTING OFF MULTIPLE OPPONENTS TO HELP YOU GET IT UP?  
TA: you know iit. lay iit on me, iif you're not two flu2h-coddled two tell me about iit.  
CG: HOW ABOUT I DO YOU ONE BETTER? YOU WANT ME TO TELL YOU ABOUT THE BATTERING YOUR SORRY CARCASS WOULD BE IN FOR IF YOU ACTUALLY GOT ME TO GIVE YOU THAT REMATCH?  
TA: god ye2  
CG: .......  
CG: WHAT, SERIOUSLY?

You pop the button on your jeans. Whoops, however did that happen, it is a mystery for the ages. You put the heel of your hand to your warming groin and grin to yourself. Shit, this was the best idea, you’ve _needed_ this.

TA: you thiink you're 2uch hot 2hiit, kk.   
TA: come on, mii2ter biig-tiime hate2tud. or do you not have iit iin you after all? tell me what you even thiink you could do two me.  
CG: IF WE’RE TALKING ABOUT A PRONOUNCED AND ENTIRELY LAMENTABLE TENDENCY TO GUTWRENCHINGLY STUPID INCLINATIONS THEN YEAH I HAVE SO MUCH ‘IT’ I COULD FUCKING SPEW.  
CG: I COULD BE A DECORATIVE SPEW FOUNTAIN OF ‘IT’ SUITABLE FOR ALL LAWNRING FUN TIMES WHERE EVERYONE CONTRACTS HORRIBLE INFECTIONS AND DIES REGRETTING EVERY SINGLE DETAIL OF THEIR HATCHING.  
CG: I MEAN LET’S FACE IT ANYONE WILLING TO TOUCH THAT HORRIFIC PILE OF WOOFBEAST OFFAL YOU GLEEFULLY PRETEND IS ANY KIND OF SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE BODY, EVEN WITH THE VERY TIPPY TOE OF THEIR BOOT AS THEY PUNT YOU YET ANOTHER SUPERFLUOUS ASSHOLE, MUST BE COMPLETELY DERANGED.  
TA: 2o you want two touch my butt.  
CG: YES. THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I SAID. YOU WIN AN AWARD FOR BREATHTAKINGLY INCISIVE MEDIA ANALYSIS.   
CG: EVERYONE IN THE AUDIENCE CHEERS UNTIL THEY RUPTURE.   
TA: ii don't know, the cheeriing ii2n't doiing much for me. go back two the part where you're fiixated on my a22, loverboii.  
CG: I THINK BEFORE I COULD EVEN LEGITIMATELY CONTEMPLATE YOUR ASS I’D NEED TO CONSULT WITH SOME SCIENTERRORISTS TO CONFIRM THAT IT EXISTS IN ANY REALM OUTSIDE THE ENTIRELY HYPOTHETICAL.  
CG: IN SMALL EASILY DIGESTIBLE PHONEMES CAPTOR I MEAN YOU HAVE NO FUCKING ASS.  
TA: good thiing you have enough a22 for any three troll2 then, you've got me covered.  
TA: iin 2mall ea2iily diigested phoneme2 kk ii am 2ayiing you are fat.  
CG: I’M NOT FAT.

Fuck, this just—this feels good, just bickering like you always used to. He’s alive, he’s... _him_. He’s still Karkat under all the makeup and glitter. You’re so fucking relieved. You’re so fucking turned on. Who’d have thought all it would take is a few perigees of thinking this shithead was dead and gone to get to the point where you’re rousing the trouser-snake to just some friendly sniping? 

TA: you’re a fuckiing moobea2t wiith a 2iide of friie2, chublord. have you 2een your own viideo2 lately? they mu2t be feediing you pure lard, you have 2o much a22.  
CG: CAPTOR, YOU IMBECILE, THIS IS WHAT US IN THE BUSINESS OF NOT BEING MADE OUT OF TWIGS AND FANGFLOSS CALL A ‘HEALTHY WEIGHT’.  
CG: IT APPARENTLY FALLS TO ME TO EXPLAIN TO YOU THAT THERE’S THIS ESOTERIC BIOLOGICAL PROCESS THAT NOTED EXPERTS IN THE FIELD OF NOT BEING RETARDED HAVE TERMED ‘EATING’. IT MEANS YOU CAN HAVE THESE MAGICAL ENDOWMENTS CALLED ‘MUSCLES’.   
TA: moo  
TA: mooooo  
CG: MUSCLES THAT I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD I AM GOING TO USE TO POUND YOU INTO A GREASY SMEAR ACROSS YOUR HIVEFLOOR YOU REPUGNANT SACK OF PISS.  
TA: a2 iif you could.  
TA: come on, kk, no fuckiing around here, tell me what you thiink you could even do two me wiithout haviing two take a breather halfway through.  
CG: FUCK YOU I COULD WAIL ON YOU ALL FUCKING DAY. I COULD DESTROY YOU. YOU’RE PRACTICALLY THE POSTERBOY FOR SNIGGERING MALNOURISHED SHITHEADS WHO NEED TO GET THE CRAP BEATEN OUT OF THEM. 

You've got a hand down your pants by now and you're squeezing your bulge, slow and rhythmic. You can almost picture his furious scowl. You can almost picture him trying to kick the crap out of you.

TA: ehehe oh man now ii’m just 2iittiing here laughiing at you ba2iically.  
TA: how would you even get at me, come on now, you’re the ampora2' preciiou2 liittle over2tuffed lap yiipbea2t and ii’m 2iittiing pretty behiind 2o many layer2 of encryptiion lock2 iit would make an iimperiial datagre22or go whoah damn that’2 a lot of encryptiion lock2.  
TA: you couldn’t fumble your way through the fiir2t goddamn combiinatiion.  
TA: hell you couldn’t even work my doorknob, doe2 iit turn left or doe2 iit turn riight WOW WHAT A TOUGH PROBLEM!!  
CG: LIKE HELL I COULDN’T, CAPTOR, LET ME LAY YOU OUT MY MAD HACKING SKILLS.  
CG: INSTEAD OF FONDLING YOUR FILTHY KNOBS LIKE A CHUMP I WILL SIMPLY WAIT UNTIL YOUR SHRIVELED UP NUTRITION BLADDER FINALLY GETS A MESSAGE THROUGH TO THAT DERANGED GREASELUMP YOU CONSIDER A FUNCTIONING BRAIN AND YOU ORDER A PIZZA.  
CG: WHO SHOULD COME TO DELIVER THE PIZZA? HARK! IT IS NOT A MEALDRONE AT ALL BUT YOUR BEST BUDDY VANTAS.  
CG: HE IS SO HANDSOME AND CHARMING.  
CG: WHAT IS ON THE PIZZA?  
CG: OH, LOOK, IT IS A WARM AND GOOEY ANNIHILATION!  
CG: THEN I STOMP ON YOUR FACE UNTIL YOU DON’T HAVE A FACE ANYMORE.  
CG: I RECEIVE SO MANY MEDALS OF VALOR FROM A GRATEFUL POPULACE THAT I BREAK MY VERTEBRAL CHUTE. I DIE COMPLETELY HAPPY WITH MY LIFE AND MY CHOICES.   
TA: kk you got that iidea from a porno.  
CG: LIKE HELL I DID.   
TA: you watched a really bad porno and now you’re 2iittiing there thiinkiing about me.  
TA: probably got your fii2t up your nook already.  
CG: WOW SHUT THE FUCK UP, *YOU’VE* PROBABLY GOT YOUR FIST UP YOUR NOOK.  
TA: ii’m workiing on iit.

There’s a long pause. A really long pause. You stare at the screen, on fire with shame and regret, fuck, why the fuck did you admit that, you’re suddenly aware you’re a hell of a lot drunker than you meant to get and any second now he’s going to block you and it’ll be another zillion perigees before you can talk to again, it’ll be worse, it’ll be never. You blew it. You have no idea what you could even say to salvage this, what kind of apology would even work—

CG: HEARING HOW BRUTALLY I COULD PUNCH YOU INSIDE-OUT’S REALLY DOING IT FOR YOU, HUH?

Oh, god. Oh god. You take the longest, chirpiest breath of your life.

TA: thiinkiing how fuckiing cute iit ii2 that you thiink you’d land the 2oftest liittle pap of a hiit on me more liike.  
CG: OH FUCK THAT IN EVERY HOLE, I WOULD *DESTROY* YOU.

Oh god fuck _wow_. Shit. He—you think maybe he means it. Maybe he’s threatening you, finally, for real.

TA: let’2 be real here chubbo.  
TA: ii 2hoot la2er2 out of my eyes liike iit ii2 not even a thing and you have let your2elf go liike a wiiggler let2 go of a hot iiron  
TA: that wiiggler basiically ju2t want2 nothiing two do wiith the iiron and ii2 al2o cryiing  
CG: YOU’RE DEFINITELY PUTTING TOGETHER A LOT OF WORDS THERE BUT ALL I AM HEARING IS 'BOO HOO I AM SO MISERABLY INADEQUATE I HAVE RETREATED ENTIRELY TO THE REALM OF MAKE BELIEVE AND FANTASY'.  
CG: TO BACK THIS SHIT UP TO GOOD OLD REGULAR REALITY  
CG: YOU’RE PROBABLY  
CG: SO   
CG: WET  
CG: RIGHT NOW, TRYING NOT TO THINK OF WHAT A FAILURE YOU ARE, BUT YOU KNOW I COULD INTRODUCE YOU  
CG: INTIMATELY  
CG: TO EVERY SINGLE WEAKNESS YOUR SAD PILE OF BONES AND SHAME CONTAINS.  
CG: LIKE YOUR UGLY NOSE?  
CG: I BET IT WOULD CRUNCH SO BEAUTIFULLY UNDER MY HEEL.  
CG: I BET IT’D BE THE BEST SOUND YOU’VE EVER MADE IN YOUR LIFE, BREAKING FOR ME.  
CG: DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT BONES SOUND LIKE WHEN THEY BREAK?  
CG: HA HA, THAT’S RHETORICAL. YOU’VE NEVER HAD A REAL DAY’S STRIFE IN YOUR LIFE BECAUSE YOU HIDE LIKE A TIMID LITTLE SHELLBEAST BEHIND YOUR PATHETICALLY EUPHEMISTIC “ENCRYPTIION2”.  
CG: I KNOW WHAT BONES SOUND LIKE WHEN THEY BREAK  
CG: UNDER A BOOTHEEL  
CG: UNDER A FIST  
CG: UNDER A LENGTH OF PIPE.  
CG: I’D DESCRIBE IT FOR YOU BUT ACTUALLY IT’S MORE SATISFYING TO LET YOU STEW IN YOUR OWN LIMP-WRISTED IMPOTENCY AND THE GENERALLY TOXIC MIASMA OF FAILURE THAT STEEPS EVERY PARTICLE OF THE UTTER WASTE OF YOUR BEING.  
CG: IS IT LIKE STEPPING ON A PIECE OF SILICOMB?  
CG: WHAT A TRAGEDY YOU’LL NEVER KNOW. 

You don't have your entire fist up your nook, no, but you've got your pants shoved down and three fingers crammed up there and you are dripping all over yourself, gasping for breath, your nerves on fire. He wants this, he wants it, he's as pitch for you as you are for him. You were expecting some shouting and name-calling, and instead he's... he's giving you this blistering, swaggering threat display, like he thinks he still needs to prove himself a worthy rival. Like you wouldn't—like you haven't already broken laws for the chance to get up in his face. Like you haven’t ached for him to hate you back since you were six and a half.

TA: never 2ay never, bb.  
TA: you're giiviing me 2uch a 2weet opportuniity wiith your 2hiity hiive iinva2iion plan.  
TA: ii could fiind out by bounciing you off the ceiiliing a couple of tiime2.  
TA: throw you around liike wiiggler'2 fiir2t practiice dummy, to22 you iinto the furniiture and 2ee what break2.  
TA: watch all that bravado crumple a2 you hiit the floor face-fiir2t.  
TA: get a good look at the freakii2h blood type your 2ick-a22 owner2 liike two make 2uch a biig deal out of.

This time the pause doesn't make you panic quite as badly. You hold it together enough to fire off one more needling shot:

TA: what'2 the matter? blown your load already and now two bu2y dyiing of 2hame two thank me for the good tiime?  
CG: TRY TLAKING OUT OF YOUR FACEGASH INSTEAD F YOUR WASTE CHUTE CAPTOR  
CG: NOT EVERYONE HASAS MUCH PRACTICE TYPING ONEHADNED AS YOU  
TA: ii'm typiing no-handed.  
CG: ...  
TA: want two 2ee?  
CG: FUKC YOU  
CG: TURN ON YOURCAM  
TA: you two

You fire up the webcam and get the connection from Karkat's end only a few seconds later. He's in a dim room, the light from his husktop bathing his face, and he's working his bulge with one hand as he stares into the screen, looking sleek and soft and intent. When he sees you, already out of your pants with one hand on your bulge and the other up your nook, he gives a harsh, breathy laugh of disbelief. "In a hurry, huh?"

Your face heats up and you squirm, trying and failing not to chirp audibly. "F-fuck you. Some of us haven't been getting pailed unconscious on a regular basis for the last season."

"Oh yeah, pathetic jealousy is super hot," he sneers, but he's struggling out of his pants as he says it. He’s got bandages across his chest and you can see the glint of staples in his arm. "Goddamnit, don't you dare finish before I can catch up."

Like _that's_ going to discourage you. You watch him sit back in his chair and spread his legs, shoving his fingers up his nook with a breathy snarl, and it's the hottest thing you've ever seen in your life. You come right there, spitting sparks, pouring out slurry across your chair like restraint isn’t even a thing.

Karkat bares his teeth at you like he'd try to kill you right now if you were in the same room, and it’s fantastic. You want him to look at you like that forever.

"Don't you fucking dare stop, you piece of shit," he snarls.

You have no intention of stopping when he looks that good and you're only just now getting to this part, you’d touch yourself all night if it’d keep him that angry. "Give me a good reason to keep going, then," you spit back, just to see him stew, and deliberately slow down.

A toothy, _malicious_ fucking grin spreads across his face, and your heart gives a heavy thrash in your chest. Your bulge twitches with interest. Karkat pulls his fingers from his nook and flicks fluid off his fingers, casually, like he jerks himself to an audience all the fucking time, like this is no big deal, and gets out of his chair.

“Hang on to yourself for two seconds and I’ll show you a trick,” he says, and then he wanders off and you hear rustling, a thump, a complicated kind of clattering noise. When he drops back into his chair, one fist still wrapped around his bulge, he’s holding something else in the other.

“Oh my god,” you say, and you sound like a wiggler.

“Bet you wish this was you right now,” Karkat says, and you don’t know if he means himself or the thick, shiny length of a concupiscent toy. It’s at least as long as a hand and thick, all around, thicker than even four of your fingers together. Your nook clenches in on itself as best as it can when you’re already so fucking flooded from one climax and you know you’re goggling at him like a chump and he’s winning—he’s so smug but just, holy shit, that thing’s _huge_. You’ve never even heard of anyone with a concupiscent toy, not for real. It’s like something some decadent ancient warqueen would have in a porno, like he doesn’t even care that makes him the harem slave boy, the fucktoy, the little kept sex kitten, and why is he so sexy like this, soft-stomached and pampered and grinning so lazily confident? He looks through the camera at you, holding his master's borrowed dildo, and he looks like he thinks he could destroy you.

“Yeah,” he purrs, low and throaty, “yeah, Sollux, just keep staring, stupid’s a good look on you,” and you snap your jaw closed, snarl, and he brings the intricately marbled tip of the thing to his nook and slides it into himself in one smooth, practiced shot.

“Oh my god,” you say again, hating him for this mind-boggling display of casual debauchery, hating yourself for being so fucking stunned.

“Mmmnh, that’s good,” he murmurs, and you don’t even know if it’s at you. He rolls his hips and you can see the entrance of his nook pulsing, stretched perfectly round and seeping out around the intrusion. The flat base of the toy has Dualscar’s twin wave sign carved into it. Karkat might as well be wearing a collar. You want to wrench that damn thing out of him and show him what getting fucked is really like, you want to claw your way through your monitor and pound him till he cries and begs and is yours.

Instead he just lets his head rest on the back of his chair and strokes his bulge in slow, show-offy twists. It’s hard not to see the highblood’s pet he’s let himself become, when he poses like this, when he bats his eyelashes, even with bandages on his chest. It’s hard not to hate him for it.

“Cut it out,” you snap, then feel a hot wash of shame burn at your ears when he just grins.

“Cut what out?” he purrs. “I’m not doing anything.” And he pouts at his screen with this big soppy near-conciliatory moue, coquettish and sickeningly cute.

“Stop being such a smarmy fucking shithead,” you growl. “I’m going to lose my fucking boner.”

He glances at you, where you’re holding your bulge, and his nose wrinkles. “Would either of us be able to tell the fucking difference?” he asks. “Let’s be real, champ, it’s not like you’ve got much to look at anyway—”

You howl with fury before you can even stop to consider what an idiot you’re acting like, and he throws his head back against his chair and cackles.

“God, you’ve got it bad,” he laughs, breathless, triumphant, and you _burn_. You want to sink your claws into that soft stomach, your teeth into those dark lips. You want to go after him so bad it’s hard not to just haul back and punch the screen. You’re up to your knuckles in your sopping-wet nook and you’ve lost all control of this, the rush and burn of it, it’s terrifying how fucking mad he’s gotten you, how good it feels, it’s completely thrilling. He’s starting to make raw, hungry chirrs on the edge of every inhalation, looking at your face, at your nook, and you’re careening towards another orgasm like a hive collapse—

“Oh,” he says brightly, looking away, “Dualscar’s home!” and he levers himself up out of his chair. You scream and come and grab for him all in one insane, pan-addled rush of murderous fury, and the screen goes blank just before your claws gouge deep slurry-smeared scratches into the chitin.

You drop to your knees, shaking, gasping for breath. Primal rage and an even deeper, stupider kind of loss rampage through you, twining horribly with the aftershocks of orgasm, and you feel like your brain is biting itself inside your skull. You’ve never come so hard in your life, you’ve never been this _angry_. It’s transcendent.

You're going to kill him, you're going to kill those bastards who bought his soul, you—your computer chimes the tone for a received Trollian message. You haul yourself up just high enough to peer at your battered, upended husktop.

CG: I KNEW THAT WOULD GET YOU.

God. Oh, god. You rest your head on the desk. You’ve spattered genetic material fucking _everywhere_ , that’s so impressively gross. Your psionics feel wobbly when you reach out to type.

TA: ...you unbeliievable 2hiit2mear.  
CG: HEH. I CAN'T RESIST THE CHANCE TO MAKE YOU SCREAM, I GUESS.   
TA: fuck you, kk, god, ii’m gonna tear you iinto tiiny piiece2 and devour every la2t one of them.  
TA: iif you’re  
TA: iif you’re not two scared two face me.  
CG: I  
CG: I WANT TO SEE YOU TRY.  
CG: I DON'T THINK I EVEN KNEW HOW MUCH.  
TA: once agaiin you need me two 2how you the liight on even the mo2t obviiou2 thiing2.  
CG: QUIT SHOVING YOUR HEAD UP YOUR NOOK, CAPTOR. I DON'T WANT IT TO GET TOO STRETCHED OUT TO BE WORTH FUCKING.  
TA: promii2e2 promii2e2.  
CG: COUNT ON IT.  
CG: LOOK, I REALLY SHOULD PROBABLY GET GOING SO I CAN CLEAN UP THIS REVOLTING MESS I'VE MADE OVER YOUR DETESTABLE CARCASS, BUT I'LL BE IN TOUCH SOON.  
CG: KEEP YOUR GUARD UP.   
TA: you two, a22munch.  
CG: <3<

He signs off. You sit there in a cooling lake of genetic material and stare at that conversation, that unprompted spade, with a big stupid shit-eating grin on your face. It worked out. You broke down and went after him and it actually worked out. Wow.

Eventually, because things don't feel completely real until you tell someone, you poke Trollian again.

TA: help  
TA: aa help  
AA: 0h dear  
AA: whats wr0ng?  
TA: 2omethiing ju2t went riight for me, what do ii do.  
AA: 0v0  
AA: invite me 0ver t0 grill y0u f0r details 0f c0urse!  
TA: ehehe  
TA: giive me half an hour two get cleaned up fiir2t.  
AA: that s0unds pr0mising! half an h0ur starting.... n0w!  
TA: augh, you're iimpo22iible.  
TA: 2ee you 2oon <>  
AA: <>

You'd better hurry in the ablution box, if you want to get all this mess off. Your chair probably just needs to be incinerated. Maybe your pants, too; they didn't really get clear of your blast radius. You don't even care. For once in your life, you feel great.

_I can't touch you but you feel so fucking fine_  
 _Let's just stay like this and waste some more time_  
—Soul Asylum, "99%"


End file.
